Dorm Food!

Experiences vary - Signe lived in a dorm with a meal plan and a completely unused kitchen her first year, and managed to make cookies once. Then she moved into an apartment and started experimenting with formal dinners for 12 and midnight cake baking. Catherine lived in a dorm with a small kitchen and made almost everything. Lisbeth had a dorm room and a meal plan for 1.6 years and almost never cooked; then she, too, got a kitchen and made a lot of cupcakes and tuna casseroles. This page holds the best advice we have.

Lisbeth recommends College Cooking by Megan and Jill Carle

The Impoverished Students' Book of Cookery, Drinkery, and Housekeepery by Jay Rosenberg is a family standby, although students are not as impoverished as they once were. Its advice on the difference between rice and R*I*C*E is still valid.

The following recipes are quick, cheap, and filling - necessities for busy students.

Mains
- Ryan's Lasagna Roll-Ups - make lots of these and keep them in the freezer in zip-loc bags - they can be reheated and served with supermarket spaghetti sauce in just a few minutes.
- Armenian Pilaf - this keeps well and almost counts as an entree by itself - if you need something filling and cheap, rice is an excellent choice
- SHEP - eat with Armenian Pilaf - fast and sustaining, and it even has green leafy vegetables in it
- Stir Fry - this is a cheaper alternative to the frozen bags of stir fry dinner you can get at the supermarket, and is just as quick to make. Again - anything that gives you an opportunity to fill up on rice is a good thing.
- Tuna Melts - if you don't have an oven, you can make these in a toaster oven.
- Cheese Toasties - a family tradition - the simplest possible version of cheese on toast.
- Primordial Chicken - from The Impoverished Students' Book of Cookery, Drinkery, and Housekeepery
Sweets
- Cinnamon Toast - you can make toast in a frypan or in the oven if you don't have a toaster or toaster oven.
- Quick Breads - anything in the quick breads section is fast and yummy. They don't keep well, so eat them fast or invite friends over to help.
- Chocolate Buttermilk Cake - doesn't require eggs and takes about 40 minutes from start to finish. An excellent thing to make on study nights: mix - study while the smell of warm chocolate cake surrounds you - take out of the oven - study while eating warm chocolate cake
- Chocolate Buttermilk Cake - Dorm Variation - Note that you can make a ¹/₄ batch of Chocolate Buttermilk Cake in a bowl and eat it raw if you're desperate for chocolatey goodness and don't have time (or an oven) to make cake.
- Dan Fudge - super simple and yummy - still missing it's secret ingredient if you want to experiment